Affect, as it is understood here, is not viewed as simply transient in quality. These states of being are not only momentary. Through the iteration of similar experiences, and therefore similar affects, they accumulate in the form of what could be considered dispositions that predispose one to act and react in particular ways. In much of the quite diverse literature on affect, from psychology and philosophy to cultural studies and literary theory, this ability of affect to accumulate is either denied or rarely made explicit. Affect, as a bodily phenomenon, is typically conceived as fleeting, whereas emotion, with its cognitive dimension, is viewed as long-lasting, triggered on an ongoing basis throughout one's life. Massumi, for example, sees emotion as the capture of affect given that the latter ‘escapes confinement’ (2002, 35). Nathanson similarly explains that ‘affect lasts but a few seconds’ (1992, 51). From his perspective ‘affect is biology whereas emotion is biography’ (Nathanson 1992, 50). In making this distinction Nathanson does point out that ‘an Organism’ has the ability to retain and store information, but this storage capacity seems almost exclusively a mindful phenomenon, namely as memories that produce emotion. Affect, as such, is viewed as the biological component of emotion. While this may be the case, affect also operates independently, accumulating as bodily memory that, while both aiding cognition and inducing behavior, may evade consciousness altogether.
Megan Watkins, “Desiring Recognition, Accumulating Affect from The Affect Theory Reader pg. 278-79